With Jay-Z, Vampire Weekend and MGMT already dominating international charts, a new crop of Brooklyn acts taking the world by storm are again proving the New York City borough's ability to breed prolific music talent.

"There's a whole population of kids living really gritty art lives that are really interesting," said Caroline Polachek, singer-songwriter with Chairlift, who achieved international recognition after their 'Bruises' song was used by Apple for their recent iPod Nano advertisement.

Chairlift have recently completed a British tour along with fellow Brooklynites School of Seven Bells and Apache Beat, all of who look set to join MGMT, MIA, Santigold and Kid Cudi in chart success.

Reputation for music

Brooklyn's reputation for music blossomed in the 1960s when New York's alternative scene, then flourishing in Manhattan's East Village, decamped across the East River into the Williamsburg neighbourhood as Manhattan became too expensive.

"Access and cheap price always generates a creative scene and now you have these pockets like Bushwick, east of Williamsburg," the singer added before their London show. "Moving there is a declaration you're going to pay as little rent as possible and slum it out."

Parallel to the alternative scene, hip-hop developed in the 1970s in the African-American Brooklyn neighbourhoods of Brownsville and Bedford-Stuyvesant, then home to future stars Jay-Z, Biggie Smalls and boxer Mike Tyson.

Packs a hefty punch

With a population of 2.5 million, Brooklyn is comparable in size to Paris or Chicago — but packs a hefty punch for its stature.

"People are not here to make money, people are here to make music. Everyone is doing something so that motivates you," New Yorkers Apache Beat singer, Ilirjana Alushaj, told AFP.

That view was echoed by Polachek.

"One of the most amazing things about Brooklyn is there are so many scenes living on top of each other without knowing," she said.

"You'll pass people on the street every day and find out years later they're from a completely different scene and doing something really awesome."

With so many cultures in one concentrated space, independent elements forge new and unique sounds.

Alushaj, whose band includes members of Australian, Serbian, Spanish and Ukrainian extraction, explained: "If you listen to the drums you won't hear a straightforward 4/4 beat.

"Everyone is experimenting, drawing on Afrobeat, middle-eastern and Asian music because it's easy to find out about."

And the bohemian community is relatively insulated from the collapse of financial institutions — including major record labels.

But gentrification remains a fear. "If an area becomes notorious for an art scene it becomes overrun with people who are chasing that scene, so the ethnic diversity gets narrowed down," Polachek said.

"Anyone who complains doesn't understand Darwinist urban living. People say that instead of moving east in Brooklyn, people are just going to move to Berlin. That's the next Williamsburg: Berlin!" she added.

Apache Beat release their first album, 'Last Chants', in May while Chairlift re-release their debut album, 'Does It Inspire You', next month.

AFP